The Best Part of my Day

So there is a time in the morning, usually about 7:30 a.m. that is the best time of my day. We have usually been up for at least a half hour and as I lay on the couch under a blanket, Adriana will come up and ask if she can lay with me. She snuggles in and we watch a show. Clyde, the dog, joins us by laying on my legs. We all lay still and silently.

This is my very favorite part of the day. It may only last 15 to 30 minutes, but in that short amount of time, everything is calm and peaceful. The only thing that matters are my babies and all I feel is love. And it is a moment that is all mine.

It is often this time of the day that sometimes carries me through the rest of our crazy days. :)

End of my parental rope

So my last post sounded like sunshine and roses around here. What a difference a few days make.

My daughter is 2 going on 3 at the end of the year and I never imagined that the personality change that has taken place over the last few weeks was possible. Wow. People should really warn you about this. :) She has always beens strong willed and determined. She has her moments and they aren't always pretty. But over the past couple weeks she has turned into a crabby, ticked off, everything mommy asks or says is stupid, screaming, tantrum machine.

I am not sure the exact cause or if I am just lucky and going to have one of those 3 year olds. She has decided to quit napping; which started the constant battles here. So I have given up even trying. If I could get her to lay down she would just sit and sing about how she was not going to sleep. I will give her credit that she didn't try to leave her room. But this weekend I decided the battle to get here there is not worth it for me. So we now have quiet time where she lays on the couch and watches a movie. It is somewhat rest, she is quiet and I have a few moments to myself. Good enough!

So next we have the fact that I have been fighting a cold for going on 2 weeks now. And I think she is fighting it too. That can't help, right?

But I think despite both these things, she is just growing up. Figuring things out. And I guess one thing she already figured out is that mommy is full of crap. She literally battles me on everything. Going to bed. Going potty. Getting dressed. Leaving the house. Going to school. Today it is going to gymnastics, which is her favorite thing to do all week, so I know that it is just defiance.

But that defiance is slowly wearing me down. The past 3 weeks have literally been some of the most exhausting weeks of my life. I have not had one second of happy downtime. It all came to a head with a 30 minute tantrum outside the mall the other day. I almost had to have my husband come get her. People were gathering, as I think some were worried I might smack her. And some probably wondering why I hadn't already. :) I took the high road. No hitting. Just was the mom that decided to just sit and make sure she didn't run into the street. I just let her go. And I think about 25 minutes into it I started crying. Must have been a site. Hopefully no one we know was there but I think they would have ran away. Who wants to know the crazy lady with the kid they cannot control crying in front of Dillards?

So that being said, I am a shell of the parent I was 3 weeks ago. If this is 3, I hope we survive. I guess they say that they never give you more than you can handle, well, guess what? I am about at capacity. A little relief would be nice.

Been a while

Well it has been a while since I posted on this site. Partly because my child and the adoption of my new child have become most important to me. Check out their blogs for details.

And partly because things have been good. I can complain about life, still do, still will, but overall have such a great one. I am so lucky to have the husband that I do. He is such a great dad and husband. Sure we have some communication issues at times, but he is so supportive of me and our daughter. I could not ask for more.

We have embarked on the adventure of adopting a baby from Haiti. It is going to be a long, hard, difficult process but it is a process that made both Rob and I take a look at our life and realize we are exactly where we need to be and with the people we need to be doing it with. We are on the same page about everything.

It is nice. I have had a lot of stress on me as of late and a lot of things have not gone the way I want, but I have to remember that the core of my world is in tact. That is all that matters. I feel so safe and so secure in that. I am so thankful for that. Because if it wasn't, I am not sure I would have the strength to deal with the rest.

Life is good. :)

Sanity vs Sleep

Every since I had a child, and more so in the last year, this has been a battle waging in me. What is more important to me? My sanity or getting sleep?

Let me start by saying sleep has always been a big challenge for me and A. I love sleep. I love to sleep in. I am a much better person with sleep. She doesn't really seem to care.

Her first year she slept great through the night but was a bad napper. I spent that entire year hoping for her to learn the art of napping so I could have some "me" time. My husband traveled every week for work and I was home by myself with her a majority of time. This resulted in her being very mommy attached and me getting no time for myself. (Did I mention she didn't take long naps?) So I got sleep at night and was rested, but had NO sanity.

After her first birthday she started taking 2 1 hour long naps a day and slept all night. Little did I know that these months would become my nirvana. These were the best days and I had yet to realize it. It was at about 16 months that I thought, this kid thing is a breeze. She was happy, I was happy. She spent a lot of time with daddy so the "me" time just poured in. Pure perfection.

When she was about 18 months, we moved into our current house. I was nervous of this for many reasons. Would she be ok with the new house and how would she adjust? I assumed a week of not wanting to go to sleep on her own and life would be that perfection I described above again. Well you not what they say about assuming? It sure made an ass out of me. After a week she did great going to sleep on her own but the night wakings began. First she woke up a few times a night. That turned into nights where sometimes it was almost every hour. She was napping during the day, but night, apparently was party time. We tried every trick in the book from coddling to crying it out. She cried. I cried. Rob may even have cried. It was rough.

After a few months I hit a wall. I wasn't quite sure what to do. When I thought I could figure out what was keeping her up, it would start all over again. I had worked up every theory from her being too cold to the irrational "there must be a ghost in our new house" to explain why she wouldn't sleep. We finally decided, since we weren't sleeping anyway, that it was time to take away the paci. That pretty much made it worse for about a week, then she got over it. After that, she started sleeping again. Hooray! It must mean the paci is as evil as they say....

We returned to sleep for a month. All night. Every night. Naps during the day. My perfect world had returned.

Now I have a little of both worlds. Some nights she sleeps great but wakes up really early (did I forget to mention the 5 am wake up phase that happened in the middle of all of this) and then naps are short. But if she takes a good nap, the next night results in a lot of wakes up. On days she takes shorter naps, she then sleeps great at night. Confused? Yea, me too. Thus leading to my dilemma, Sanity or Sleep?

The best answer would be to get her on a schedule that is consistent. Anyone who says this to me might get whacked. I have tried and continue to try to put her down at the same time, same bedtime routines, anything really to produce the same results day in and day out. I tried cutting out nap which lead to a full nights sleep but to a crazy, mad toddler the next day. She isn't quite ready for that...

So maybe a few times a week, I get a full nights sleep. Always waking early, but I am getting used to that as I would rather sleep through the night then sleep in these days. (She is training me well right?) So I pick sleep. But then there are those days that she naps great and I get 2 hours of time to myself which I can watch tv, clean, work out, do whatever and that is great as well. Ok, I pick sanity.

Both have huge advantages for me and I can't decide which is better for me. Both are truly needed to be a balanced, happy person. But another thing I have learned as a parent is that balance isn't always that easy to achieve. So for now, I will relish my few days of sanity and a few days of sleep. Nothing lasts forever right? :)

So after all that, I still haven't solved anything. And even if I did, it would change tomorrow. It is the beauty of parenting. Because at the end of the day, it is all about her. And what she needs. And I am perfectly happy with that.

Words to live by

My new favorite

That is right. A drink. I don't know why but I am obsessed with it. So good and refreshing. It has ALMOST replaced my Diet Dr Pepper obsession....almost.

This is the End, My Friend...The End

So I stayed up until midnight watching the 2 1/2 hour finale of Lost and while I have so many thoughts, feeling and emotions about it, all I really want to say is what an amazing end to an amazing show. And bravo to the writers, actors, etc for making a series finale that was one of the best I have ever seen.

I am not sure it was what everyone expected. It didn't explain each and every mystery that has unfolded over the past 6 years and I never thought it would be so happy about that. What it did was wrap up the island story, bring the amazing characters together in a way that was so beautifully done and remind us this was a story about redemption and love. It made the characters, their relationships, their strengths and their growth the center point. Sure it was a show about an island and its powers, but it was the characters that kept me watching.

I woke up Monday morning with puffy eyes and haven't stopped thinking about it since. I have read many writings and posts about it. I wish I had the ability to write about it but I am positive I could not have done it as eloquently as those that have already have. So I will conclude by saying thank you. Thank you for creating a show that kept us interested and talking. Thinking, laughing, crying, frustrated and mad. And thank you for ending it so...beautifully.

RIP Lost.

The End of Lost

Something that has been a part of my life for the last 6 years is ending tonight. I find myself excited and also a little sad about it. And yes. It is a TV show. And yes, I need to get an actual life.

Talking about Lost. A show that is watched by millions and one I refused to watch at first. Not sure why or what my stance on it was. But after the first year was over, Rob and I had to see what all the fuss was about. So we bought it on DVD and watched the entire 25 show season in like 3 nights and a weekend. We stayed up til 2 in the morning every night just watching "1" more episode. We were hooked. Started season 2 and it has been running our lives ever since.

So here we are. Tonight is the last show ever. I knew this day would come and really wanted it to so I would know what is going on. Each week I watch and I love every minute of it but find myself more ticked off than the week before and more confused. Each week I tell Rob I am done watching the show because it is so frustrating, yet each week I can't wait for it to come again. But now that the end is near, I find it bittersweet. Will they wrap up the story so all our questions will be answered? And if so, really, do I want to know? Last week after they answered some questions I turned to Rob and told him I am not sure I want to know what is really going on. To that he replied "you are exhausting....and a little crazy" Yes, I know. I hear that from him so much, I figure it is in the running for my tombstone. "Here lies Val. Mother, wife, sister, daughter. Was exhausting and a little crazy. RIP"

Blog Therapy

So....instead of using my husband to listen to me (which never happens) or facebook, I think I will start posting again.

A little blog therapy. Never hurts to get it out right? ;)